That’s what the SD is for.
I would like for a Hebrew-speaking liberal democracy to survive in the Levant. But if we’re talking about Realpolitik, part of that is not wishing for impossible things. The problem is the Geopolitik. Israel divides & controls what they call “Palestine,” while continuing to occupy much of what the Palestinians, & history, call Palestine. This is intolerable to the Palestinians for reasons that should be obvious, but Zionists & their fellow-travelers insist that the Palestinians “lost” back in 1948 & should just give up their country. This childish misunderstanding of the nature of human history stands in the way of understanding a truth: that the ancestors of today’s Palestinians did not fight for their own country, but their descendants are lurching toward correcting that mistake. When Hamas’s terrorism fails as did Arafat’s, true warriors may finally arise & sweep the Jews out, to a man.
Weeee!
So they’re gonna finish the job Hitler shoulda finished, eh?
See my post #22 above.
wtf is a "true warrior?
I have to say, I’m gobsmacked that you would say a thing like that.
Yeah, see, you Jews should know your place. Pushy!
Read his whole post.
Doubt it. It takes a lot more than fighting spirit to make a successful warrior, and what it takes, the Palestinians ain’t got.
< Add it to your spellcheck.
Israel: my experience is that the women are uninhibited. That counts for a lot. And you can lurk on the SD and find the right platitudes to get onside; cheaper than booze.
That might help you get laid if you visit Tel Aviv for business or pleasure, but what else does it “count for”?
^ Obviously thataway. :smack:
Was this not a debate on the proper uses of testosterone? I am occasionally in error.
Welcome to another occasion.
Not on the evidence of the thread thus far and presently.
Well, everyone knows that. You can tell because there have been so many ‘peace’ organizations protesting in front of Syrian embassies. And so many young American girls standing in front of Syrian tanks, and so many editorials on how Syria must deal with the problem…
Oh, wait. None of that happened. Just like the condemnation that never happened when Palestinians were expelled from other Arab countries. Israel must be special. I wonder what it could be?
In fact, there are almost as many Palestinian refugees in Jordan as there are Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank. And almost 300,000 living in refugee camps. Another 130,000 or so are in refugee camps in Lebanon. The refugees in Lebanon cannot become citizens, they have no access to public health care or education, have no civil rights, and are not allowed to compete with Lebanese for many jobs. As a result, they have about 40% unemployment. Where’s the left marching against that?
Where was the support for the Palestinians when Kuwait uprooted 400,000 of them and expelled them from the country in 1991?
<Applause>
Look, here’s the deal in a nutshell. When Israel was created, the Palestinians were offered a state. The other Arab countries told them not to take it, because once the Israelis were in charge the Arab world was going to smash them and take the land back.
Well, that didn’t happen. Despite overwhelming forces and unprovoked wars, Israel kicked ass. This humiliated the Arabs. Not only did the hated Jews succeed in creating a state next door to them, but their economy was booming, previous crappy land was being turned into valuable real-estate, and the Arabs had been smashed on the battlefield. So the hatred of Israel grew.
In the meantime, the Palestians became very useful. It’s no surprise that they aren’t welcome in Arab countries - they’re far more useful as pawns. By parking a dislocated people on Israel’s doorstep, and then preaching hatred, they stuck a thorn in Israel’s side that can’t be removed. None of those countries REALLY care about the Palestinians - if they were being abused by fellow Muslims, no one would care.
And since the Arabs have learned that they have no hope of defeating Israel on the battlefield, they’ve evolved their strategy into a proxy war. Iran creates Hezbollah, Syria Hamas. They fund and train terrorists, and feed bombs and weapons to the Palestinians. So these nations stay at arms length, and their proxies continually attack Israel and then fade back into the civilian population. Israel goes after them, the world condemns Israel, Israel withdraws, and then the proxies come out of the woodwork and do it again. And again. And again.
But then they overreached. Hezbollah became so strong it became part of the ruling power in Lebanon, and Hamas became the government in the Palestinian territories. So suddenly they are no longer at arms-length.
I think Israel’s calculus is this: First, they withdrew from Gaza, to take away the Palestinian Casus Belli for continued attacks. If the attacks then continue, Israel can then claim that A) they are wholly unprovoked, and B) go after the actual governments, since the terrorists are now part of the government.
And don’t be too surprised to see this escalate into Israeli attacks on Iran and Syria. Because here’s the thing - as long as the thugs in those two nations can continue their proxy war with impugnity, why wouldn’t they? What do the Iranians care if some Lebanese are killed in their war with Israel? The Syrians don’t care how many Palestinians are killed from Israeli reprisals - in fact they might welcome it because it helps bring world opinion down on Israel.
So maybe Israel is thinking that the time is now to finally make these countries pay. The only way to stop the proxy wars is to make it really, really expensive to engage in one. Right now, Israel has about the most world opinion on its side as it’s going to get. It has George Bush in the White House - all bets are off depending on who the next president is. Iran still does not have nukes, but will in a few years.
So this may be their window to finally take a bold step and strike back at the heart of the problem. I wouldn’t be surprised to see an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, or on Syrian military or economic targets. Because if the current state of affairs is allowed to continue indefinitely, one of these days the rocket that gets lobbed over the Israeli border is going to have a nuclear warhead on it. Of course, it will come from a ‘non-state actor’, and Iran will have just enough of a cockamamie cover story to get the anti-semitic side of the world going along with it. But it’ll happen.
Oh, and as far as the Iraqi people go, don’t be so sure that they’ll fall in line with the rest of the Arab world on this. They remember the Palestinians cheering for Saddam. They’ve suffered under terrorism, and have no love for terrorist organizations. There’s a very interesting post from an Iraqi blogger at Iraq The Model, in which he translates forum conversations from the BBC’s Arabic forums. The comments from Iraqis are by and large neutral to pro-Israel, the comments from the rest of the Arabs very anti-Israel. And one interesting tidbit is that the other Arab messages always seem to touch on the themes of dignity and honor, while the Iraqis never mention it. A difference in mental outlook that seemed very interesting to me. The Iraqis seem much more modern and less tribal in their way of thinking.
Nice post, Sam.
Anything to contribute, Seva, or are you “too cool for school”?
Dang Sam - you summed up almost every waking thought I had on the subject in one post. You left out Israel’s opportunity to attack Iran’s nuclear program.
Dang Sam - you summed up almost every waking thought I had on the subject in one post. You left out Israel’s opportunity to attack Iran’s nuclear program.
All true.
When come back, bring relevance.